wendy house

wendy: Northumberland Avenue please

Taxi driver: how far up Norvie do you want to go?

wendy: what do you mean by ‘up Norvie’?

Taxi driver: that’s what we call Northumberland Avenue

wendy: near the Angling store,  who are ‘we’?

Taxi driver: taxi drivers

Egyptian road traffic (car, people, horses, cows, goats, carts) work out what to do based on local circumstances rather than any obvious rules.  A free market for its users, a self-regulating system.

Pedestrians. Cairo traffic and roads were a persistent source of fascination. Pedestrians loiter in groups chatting along the roadside, waiting for minibuses and taxes. The spill out onto dual carriageways, they weave between the traffic as the cross roads.

Passengers. Health and safety culture here in Egypt is great fun for people who enjoy not having to follow over-documented common sense for those without it.  The odd free-standing cow in the back of a truck was a common site

Prangs. I was only involved in one car accident during my stay. Judging by the dents and general ‘finnish’ of the cars ‘minor’ accidents are fairly common and not worthy of repair. After our accident the drivers stopped, got out, and argued passionately with arms waving for about 2 minutes then drove away, calm. 

Peeps. the car horn mainly says ‘don’t move any closer that’s where I am (going)‘.  One of my taxi drivers found this particularly useful when he decided to drive the wrong way down what looked like a one way street.  The sound of car horns is a constant background noise to the city. 

Sometimes the sound morphs to music before sliding back to

cacophony

Prefab Sprout put their finger on a fundamental truth when they pointed out that some things hurt much more than cars and girls. Cars and girls have been kind to me so far, some things have been less forgiving, for example Dentists, Ski Lifts and Curb Stones

Prefab Sprout sang Cars and Girls

The natural harbour at Falmouth is one of the cheapest places to store large, unused, container ships. 

We counted 7 of these large automotive carrier ships stored in the tiny, otherwise picturesque, Falmouth harbour.  The ships are waiting for the automotive industry to either come out of recession or decide to send them to the scrap yard.

In 1991 I invested in driving lessons, passed my test, bought a Diesel Engine car, and regularly drove the A68  wishing the road, daylight and hope would last forever.

Tracey Chapman sings fast car

Whilst concentrating on driving home through the outstanding Oxfordshire countryside I am everywhere-aware and nowhere.  The journey lasts as long as a daydream,  a CD,  15 Johnny Cash songs, 20 miles.  Suprisingly, Thomas didn’t warm to Johnny Cash,  on the other handbrake,  Dusty definitely pumps his petrol Diesel. 

Dusty Springfield bounced us to In the middle of nowhere

Thomones are like pheromones,  you can’t see, hear or smell them but they affect the behaviour of those around them.  In Thomas’s case he clearly affects the behaviour of Mini’s that come within car parking distance.  Either these Mini’s are stalking him or they find impact of his Thomones too much to resist.  Maybe the Mini’s natural habitattery is in a herd, or convoy,  maybe that’s why they were used for the Italian job.

Mini herding behaviour demonstrated:

Emotional attatchments to animate, vibrating, warm, supportive, stylised objects.  It happens.  You may have noticed my recent focus on my new comrade, Thomas.  I’ll try to keep my enthusiasm away from the too-tedious-for-700-yawns range.  Try.

This week I’ve been humming an appropriate Queen song from their debut album A night at the Opera.

Queen sang I’m in love with my car

Please indulge in a brief, chirpy, round of applause to welcome Thomas with the Diesel tank engine to the Wendy House team.  He growls in the morning but purrs after he’s had a little run.  Just like my first Diesel engine car. 

In his first few days Thomas has already become the star of the Wendy House travelling show:

Person in car park (PICP): Have you bought a car then?

Wendy:  Yes

PICP: It’s not the Mini?!  (raises pitch towards end of sentence)

Wendy:  It’s the mini

PICP: OH, such a lovely colour

In some circumstances computer systems can deliberately stop people from making ‘Errors’.  This is an example of a system preventing the people that use it from making ‘errors’ by trying to do rather useful things:  

Wendy:  can I move the car insurance start date back by one week?

Car Insurance Agent (CIA):  No

Wendy:  Oh (signifying complete suprise at this rude treatment of a potential non-customer)

CIA:  you will have to cancel the whole policy and then open a completely new one with a different start date

Wendy:  Computer system makes you do that?  It wont let you just change start dates?

CIA:  Yes

It took us 30 minutes to cancel,  then re-apply for the same car insurance with a different start date.  2 sets of documents are in the post.  

Wendy:  Are you from Hull?

CIA:  Leeds,  its quite near to Hull

Good weather in Leeds.

Words of wisdom from an almost stranger*.  In this case a Mini dealership sales person of a Canadian persuasion gave me this tip:

If you enjoy driving, and want a Diesel, I wouldn’t recommend the Mini One Diesel.  The Mini Cooper Diesel is much more fun, its in a completely different class.

I didn’t accept this tip on face value,  I test drove a Mini One Diesel.  Not fun.  I did enjoy driving the Mini Cooper Diesel,  though I found all the superflous fancy stuff, such as internal lighting schemes more embarressing than stylish. 

* past tips provided by Alan the hairdresser.  Lucia the hairdresser, an anonymous manicurist, a Jackson’s sales assistant, a bus stop philanthropist and Reading Police

Family House enjoyed breakfast with the live BBC  coverage of the boys in the Melbourne F1 race:

It’s not over yet (lap 30 of 58)

Fisichella has missed his box,  Fisichella has previous for missing the box

he’s just had a moment

we’ve lost a Renault

The Maclaren has clearly got the grunt,  it just hasn’t got the grip

he’s just popped a sensible pill

It’s a living thing an F1 race

Lots of excitement was consumed and Tea spilt.   The outstanding performance by the former Honda Formula 1 racing team,  beautifully demonstrate how an asset sold-off by a retrenching multinational company (Honda) can quickly turn their product into an inspiration following a management buyout.    But then the shine was taken off the win by the subsequent announcement of substantial redundancies. 

Hoorah!… Oh!

Stopping at the AA approved dealership with the low mileage Mini One D for sale:

Sales:  there’s virtually no difference between the old and new model Mini D’s,  except the styling and I prefer the styling in the old model. 

Wendy:  they have different Engines,  the old one is a Toyota Yaris,  I don’t know what the new one is.  A different engine seems like a significant difference.

Sales: Coopper Diesel has a Peugeot engine

Wendy:  My last car in the UK was a 5yr old Peugeot 309  1.9 Diesel in 1992, an awesome Engine, the car took me for 46,ooo miles in 1 yr with nothing other than standard wear and tear.

Sales: [silence]

Later,  while driving the Mini

Wendy:  that is a VERY clunky gearbox, 

Sales:  is it? 

Wendy:  No I was lying to get the price down, have you actually drivien this car?  its clearly clunky

Later,  on the forecourt after no beverage has been offered and no-one has asked to take my name, phone number,  other contact details or manage the conversation:

Wendy:  what sort of discount would you give me for having no car to trade-in part exchange?

Sales:  none

Wendy: what sort of discount would you give me if I could arrange a cash purchase

Sales:  none

Wendy:  do you actually want to sell this car,  I know its been on your books for at least 3 weeks

Sales: we can’t get enough good quality second hand cars,  with the recession the second hand business is good

Wendy:  I’ll look at the other Mini’s on my list and talk to the dealers and might get back to you if this one is still a possibility

Wendy:  Hello

AA Approved Car Dealership Sales Person (Sales):  Hello

Wendy:  My name’s Wendy and I’m interested in the used Diesel Mini advertised on your website.

Sales: Yes

Wendy:  It has suprisingly low mileage, do you know why?

Sales: The owner has 4 other cars and spends most of their time abroad,  its mainly sat in their garage, its in excellent condition.  I’ve known them for 25 years.

Wendy: Oh (signifying impressed by people with sufficient funds to buy a car to store it)  could I book a time to test drive it?

Sales: Yes

Wendy:  I live 21 miles away, in Reading

Sales: If you tell me when you arrive I can pick you up from the local train station

Wendy: to catch a train I’d have to go into London and then come out again,  it would take more than 90 minutes, and at least 2 train rides.  Could you possibly bring the car over to Reading?

Sales: No, we don’t do that

Wendy: Oh (signifying suprise at the sales person’s lack of conversational charm or any effort put into actually attempting sell the car)

Sales: we can’t leave the office unstaffed. 

Wendy:  I can get there on (date/time) would that work for a test drive?

Sales:  Are you interested in buying it then?

Wendy:  No, I just fancied a day trip out and a free drive in someoneelses second hand mini for the hell of it

Wendy:  yes

The following conversations happened within a 5 min time frame:

person 1: would you like a lift home Wendy?

wendy: thanks for asking,  I just live around the corner, I’ll walk

person 2:  Wendy,  can I give you a lift home?

wendy: thanks,  its so lovelly out and I live so near that I’d like to walk

while walking home a convertible car with the top down and an Oakly sunglasses-wearing driver curb crawls by me

person 3: can I give you a lift anywhere wendy

wendy:  thanks for offering,  its such a lovely day and I only live round the corner so I’ll walk

There are clear signs that my social life would improve if I lived further away or accepted lifts for distances of less than 500 yards on a sunny day.

The Reliant Robin is a design classic.  Some of my early courting experiences were in a Reliant Robin.  This one appears to be in need of more than the average tender loving care as it is taken off the streets of Reading.

In the US car ownership is established with a Title.  When you sell your car you transfer the title to the new owner.  Loosea’s title has gone AWOL.  I looked everywhere,  honest.   Luckily a swift check online produced a form for declaring her title lost and releasing it to a new owner.  My signature on the slightly confusing form had to be notarised.  The Notary had to ask for a second opinion about what should be filled-in.  All turned out well in the end.  Hoorah,  despite my relocation induced scattiness Loosea will get to go to a new home,  across the road,  the house opposite,  she’s a bit of a home-body

forty-seventh post in a Wednesday series highlighting some of the pollutants that promote Wendy’s singleness.

Reason # 47: emissions tested

Wendys can produce unfiltered, untested balderdash. In Washington State gas emissions are subject to production constraints and testing, but alas, not Wendy’s balderbash. Boys ill-equipt with their own balderdash filtering mechnaism are unlikely to survive pre-dating balderbash emissions.

When trying-out a new Tea venue I normally take a quick look at the place name and memorize it’s location as a road junction then swing on out there in LooSea. This strategy has served me well,  until today.  Two tea places in the same building,  is Seattle.  Hardly what a girl is expecting.  I’d arranged to meet Jenn at one of them.  Remedy teas.

I went into the wrong one. The Teapot.  After two pots of excellent Orange Spice tea, without milk or company,  I left.  I stopped to take a photograph of the building on the way out. That’s when I noticed my mistake,  can you see it?  Teapot on the left,  Remedy Tea on the right.  I meekly wandered over to “Remedy teas”. 

Jenn in black and the torture victim were sitting outside.  In January, outside, a week after snow-fall, without coats.   Washington State locals are really rufty-tufty.  Jenn’s ‘Loser’ handbag was definitely pointing at me under the table.  How did she know in advance? They were very forgiving about my missing the place first time and let me join them for another pot of Tea and a waitress interview. 

After three pots of tea I only used the ‘restrooms’ once,  my bladder is under tight control.  The restrooms also helped me with a poster describing the six-stages of ’how to wash your hands’ with pictures.  Now I know.  Good job I’ve got that little skill sorted now. It should prevent all sorts of unplanned nastiness.

Do not try this at home

Loosea’s boot (US trunk) has a magnetic quality for the SUV’s that follow her.  To reduce the effect I normally regularly pull into parking places allowing the aggressive SUVs to progress to sniffing the boot of the car in front of Loosea.  Pulling into a parking place is not always a realistic option on windy mountain roads.  While sight-seeing on the Olympic peninsula I serendipitously discovered a way to abrogate this SUV courting activity.  A simple and cunning manoeuvre that I have christened flaccid drifting.   

Steps to perform a flaccid drift:

1. drive so that the passenger-side of the car slowly crosses onto the hard shoulder.
2. slowly correct your alignment.
3. if there is plenty of oncoming traffic repeat steps 1 through 2 above.
4. if there is no oncoming traffic, no opportunity for the car behind to overtake and no passing place within sight take steps 5 and 6.
5. drive so that the driver-side of the car crosses the centre of the road.
6. slowly correct your alignment.

Note:  in many US wide lanes, with a small car, it is possible to perform the flaccid drift without ever leaving the lane.  This is a preferable, safer, operation.

This manoeuvre increases the distance between Loosea’s boot and the following SUV by approximately 8 fold.  Repeating the 6 steps is not necessary.  Once the extra distance between Loosea’s boot and the SUV is established,  it is reasonably well maintained. Excellent result. 

Dr. Wendy does not recommend using this highly dangerous manoeuvre.

Lakeside Collision:  Not recommended.  Extremely poor customer service strategy.

Due to a slight disagreement with a concrete column LooSea was sent to reform school (Lakeside Collision) for a quoted 3 days of treatments.

I phoned Lakeside Collission after 3 days to confirm that I could pick-up my beloved Loosea.  No.  She’s not ready, should be ready tomorrow.  We’ll call you when she’s ready.   

Tomorrow came.  No-one phoned.  I called them.  No,  LooSea can’t come home, she’s not ready.  They only call people when their car is ready to be released,  has passed the quality assessements. They refused to give me an estimation of when she would be ready.  They are going to hold her without any courtesy check-ins with me to help me plan my life without her.  Apparantly replacing a Honda Civic wing and bumper will take at least 5 days….   maybe more… ..no-one dare say…

Their refusal, or inability, to estimate a work completion time and follow-up to let me know when, if, that time shifts has undermined my confidence in the company.  What strategies do they use for mechanical troubleshooting if their strategy for customer-service troubleshooting is cut the customer out of the information loop?

Not a clever move.  Literally.

The concrete pillar wont budge on it’s position.  Inflexible.  LooSea, softy that she is, crumpled under such rigidity.  Right indicator light smashed to pretty reflective pieces.  Bumper deformed and scratched.  We snuck home together.  Taking only left turns.  Wendy House scars from the 6.8 Quake (28 Feb 2001) can be seen on the concrete floor of the first picture.  The moral is,  mother-earth cracks concrete, pretty reflective lightfixtures do not.  The pillars of concrete should not be tangled with lightly.  Or, look forward when you reverse-turn out of a tight parking slot. An obvious,  yet potentially rather expenisve lesson learned.  I will be taking the bus to work today….

This Excel bar chart told me that silver cars have superior braking-distances to brown cars when driving behind LooSea. 

Who would have guessed?

In less than 15 mins. LooSea’s battery spontaneously drained while I stopped in the fridge. 

Two wonderful Hispanic men rescued me.

They were fortunate enough to have parked next to LooSea. Their English was better than my Spanish.  Extremely limited.  I pointed at my jump leads, opened the bonnet, and asked if they could help me.  They giggled a bit. Pointed at their car and said “Avis” as I passed them the other end of the leads. 

Is LooSea telling me something? will she start for me tomorrow? I’m feeling battery-power-challenged at the moment. 

This generous behaviour warranted a proposal.  I didn’t propose because I haven’t yet purchased a ring to demonstrate my sincerity and commitment to proposees.

Snoqualmie Pass!

LooSea is my faithful 1995 Honda Civic. LooSea and ‘chains’ braved “Interstate 90″ (I90) to Snoqualmie pass. For UK readers, imagine a 4 lane Motorway with virtually no other traffic! A double-sized hard-shoulder. Vehicles stop on this hard shoulder to ‘Chain-up’. This is not only legal, its good for safety! That’s what driving the I90 from Seattle to Snoqualmie pass at noon on a Saturday is like! It’s about 40mins drive from my home.

More of todays snow photo’s. Check-out the snow-wall at the edge of the snow-ploughed-road. I’ve never seen anything like it in England!

Him: “How can you see where you’re driving with all this condensation?”

ME: “That’s not condensation, that’s good old-fashioned dirt” (I hadn’t recently washed my hair or Loo Sea’s windows)

Him: “It’s condensation, look” (drags finger down Loo Sea’s winscreen)

ME: “Yes, Yes,YES! Add grease marks! draw pictures!”

Him: (Silence as he realises that its dirt not condensation)

Choices to avoid an accident:

1. Buy a hairdryer to ensure the car windows do not steam up ($30)
2. Fix the air conditioner in the car ($500)

Unfortunately, this morning, I couldn’t tell if it was ‘foggy’ or if my windows had just steamed-up unless I wiped my finger across the window. Foggy and steamy. Apparantly, when your hair feels dry from a $30 hair-dryer its just lying. Cheap solution didnt work. With the heating and fan on full Loo Sea (1995, Honda Civic) was still struggling to give me a clear view of the road.

Solution?

Shower before going to bed instead of first thing in the morning

If there are no more entries on this blog, you’ll be able to infer the result, otherwise I’ll let you know how this experiment in basic physics works out,

W wet-hair-disguised-as-dry-hair

After a steamy hot shower (mmMMmmm….) I tumbled into the trusty old Honda Civic (called Loo Sea). Loo Sea’s windows instantly went opaque as we left the warmth of my home. I know a bit about physics – condensation is attracted to cold surfaces. So I whacked up the heating controls and directed all the vents at the windows and pulled over while the windows cleared.

Accident avoided.

Guess I’ll have to either shave my head or get a hair-dryer because Loo Sea’s directional heat controls are a bit funky.

Wendy wet-hair

There is a slightly different perspective on what constitutes a 2-way street in the UK. This is an examples where its perfectly clear that drivers will have to negotatie the direction of the street on a car-by-car basis…

When parking on these street’s many car-owners typically flip their wing-mirrors against their car to avoid loosing them through collisions when a car passes by.

The leafy lane leads to my parent’s home, where I’m currently convalescing…

Wendy Wecovering-Well

The MG Rover group (Rover) crawls to it’s death in April 2005. It represented the remnants of the UK’s home grown mass production car industry.

The short story is that it was gradually asset stripped by BMW and the ‘Phoenix 4′ for over a decade with questions about management competency and organisational culture.

The Long(bridge) story reads more like a Greek (Hollywood?) Epic. It moves from the UK car industry as a cottage industry through mergers to Nationalization and beyond! It covers political turmoil with the demise of Unions, evolution of ‘New Labour’ and differing government involvements in this industry. The SWP (extreme) socialists blame the ineffectiveness of Unions and Labour government for Rovers demise. There are international players (Honda) and big money wheeling and dealing buy-outs (BMW), sell-outs (BMW) and government inquiry’s. Throw in somequestionable accounting practices and an infamous controversial home-grown team “Phoenix 4” who bought the company for £10 from BMW in 2000. Add an impending pension scandal for the estimated 6,000 employees at the company, impacting even more dealerships. The impending pension scandal ensures the story will stay live for years to come. Where-as the Warkwickshire county cricket team will probably have to return their cars gained from a sponsorship deal in the near future.

The BBC reports: “An estimated 15,000-20,000 jobs in the area are supported by business from Longbridge.” Apparently there is little left of value. Even the name “Rover” was licensed from the German company BMW.

There are lots of potential hero’s and bad guys, often the same guys… …while the Local Longbridge employees are undoubtedly the worst impacted victims.

Jeremy Clarkson, provides his epitaph, uniquely in all the summaries, based on the quality of the recently produced cars.

Wendy

Today my 1995 Honda had its ‘emissions’ tested to check that they are consistent with the standards required by the county where the car is registered. A Vehicle emissions test is a necessary pre-requisite to obtaining “tabs“. Tabs are small coloured plastic labels showing a ‘date’ when they ‘expire’. They last one year. They are attached to the car license plate to indicate that Road taxes have been paid for this vehicle and it has passed an emissions test. The UK equivalent of Tabs comes in the form of an “MOT” and tax disc. Washington state does not check the road-worthiness of the car beyond the car emissions. This was a shock to me. Realizing that road vehicles are not checked for road-worthiness beyond their emissions. The MOT is a very effective way of ensuring lack of accidents due to poor car maintenance, it probably saves lives.

What’s the process like?

• The local “DOL” (Department of Licensing) sends the registered vehicle owner a letter to remind them that they need to renew their tabs every year, sometimes (not annually) it includes a requirement to have emissions tested. This letter arrives about 2 months before the Tabs expire.
• You find a vehicle emissions test center. They publish current ‘wait times’ online (that rocks!). You drive your car to a station. They actually recommend that you warm the engine-up with a 15 minute drive and keep it warm to increase your likelihood of passing.
• You sit in a line of cars leading to covered, outdoor checking station (in my case). The cars are generally older, the smell of all the ‘running’ engines is not pleasant. Even though the test center is outdoors I noticed it was supplied with multiple, large, fans. They weren’t running today.
• As you drive from the line in the street, to the line in the forecourt of the testing station you take a ‘ticket’ this ticket is stamped when you are tested. This provides the ‘wait time’ information that is published on the web-site.
• You pay, you park the drive-wheels of your car over some ‘rollers’ and get out. A tester puts a long cable in the exhaust pipe of your car and plugs a computer of some form into your lighter-socket. He then drives your car (without moving) over the rollers. He watches a TV display (which I couldn’t see) that presumably gives some sort of ‘live’ feedback. Then he gets out of the car, unplugs everything, and gives you a print-out of your results. The actual test only took about 5 mins.

I think an MOT would be quite a cultural suprise to americans, both in terms of ‘time’ to get the test completed, the sheer breath of things tested, and of course – the cost!

WET – Wendy Emissions Tested